Boris Johnson’s ‘cakeism’ still plagues the Conservative Party

Editorial: The government pretends to lower taxes while keeping them high, and to say it is cutting migration when it knows it is practically impossible to do so

(Dave Brown)

One of the odder aspects of the government’s political campaigning is the way that it is focusing with extraordinary force on the two issues where it is most spectacularly failing. The past few days have demonstrated with equal force the folly of doing so.

The chancellor’s autumn statement featured what was effectively a small national insurance contribution rebate, but became propagandised as something like the biggest tax cut since the Romans were running things. You would not think from the blizzard of memes, press briefings and media interviews about the biggest tax cuts in history that the UK is still lumbered with the heaviest tax burden since the end of the Second World War. Such hype is obviously counterproductive when it runs directly against people’s experiences, which is the biggest fall in their living standards since records began in the 1950s.

Much the same goes for migration. Given the inherent problems of managing both lawful and irregular migration, a wise administration might choose to play it down – or even give some thought to telling the general public why migration might actually be a positive, and one way Britain can expand its economy, raise consumption and improve public services. Indeed, some economists suggest that Jeremy Hunt only had that little bit more headroom to cut taxes in the autumn statement because so many immigrants have underpinned economic growth and helped the UK avoid recession. No one is going to tweet that on the Conservative campaign headquarters X feed, however.